Snow of the Sahara
by Shantih
Summary: Yami Bakura went back in time, and the Thief King was displaced. Now he's lost in the desert, his only companion a certain Tomb Keeper. Will they find a way to save each other? Or lead to their own destruction? Possible MarikxBakura...READ&REVIEW!
1. Lost in the desert

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, Marik, or Bakura. Never have, never will.

A/N: I've taken dramatic liberties with the confines of the story arc. Deal with it.



There was a deafening crack that seemed to echo infinitely; that seemed to obliterate thought and memory and purpose. I remember whipping through a cold, dark void, filled with a freezing wind. It felt as if my life was ending, as if I was being stripped down to my bones. Inexplicably, I was filled with a kind of wild joy.

It was eternity contained in a second. And I remember thinking to myself, 'what happens, happens.' It wasn't up to me to decide, or to know.

Then came the fall.



Slowly, I woke up. I kept my eyes closed. For all I knew, I could have passed into the Afterlife. As long as I didn't open my eyes, whatever strange reality had just passed could be dismissed as mere fantasy.

Strange, there was no sound. Or rather, there was a sound. It was a dead silence that emanated from the land around me. I knew that silence intimately. Above, the empty howl of feeble winds. There was sand beneath me, in my hair, in my mouth. Without opening my eyes, I knew I was in the desert. How long I had been sleeping there, I didn't know.

Finally, I let the ugly dawn penetrate my vision. I had spent almost my entire life in the desert. Some strange mystic experience happens, then I wake up feeling like a shadow of my former self, only to find myself right back where I started. I've known people go through their entire slavish lives content, existing on the hope that when they die, their Afterlife will be filled with verdant gardens, water that runs with notes of music, date-palms, cool breezes, and all the riches and beauties of Paradise. Now am I to find that after all this, only the Sahara awaits me for eternity, chuckling like a fiend at the end of the road? Perhaps I should have expected this. After all, I was a thief. But somehow, I had hoped God would be kind.

My mind staggered with the prospect of this nightmare. I tried to get a hold on myself. It seemed I still had a body; I still had my crimson robe. I put a hand to my head and it came back red and sticky with blood. It must have been from the fall. Was it possible I was still alive? Perhaps I had not yet been judged by Osiris and condemned. Perhaps there was still time to redeem myself?

I clutched frantically at the possibility. But then, how to explain being here, in the middle of nowhere? Someone must have drugged me and left me here for dead, or perhaps to die of starvation. But someone who would expect me to just meekly die knew nothing of the King of Thieves. My whole life had been defying odds, and I would find a way out of the desert. I would survive.

The Sun was still low on the Eastern horizon, and it was already hot. I had a few hours to find some kind of shelter if I didn't want to bake alive. Tentatively, I decided to set out in a vague Northeast direction. With any luck, I wouldn't be too far from the capital city. If I kept going long enough, at any rate, I would end up at either of the two seas that bordered the land. I hoped I was still in Egypt; if I ran into some of the barbarians to the South I'd be in a fine mess.

I listened carefully to the winds, trying to make out any sounds that might have carried. Alas, only more silence. The winds themselves were confused, going every which way, the currents shifting from moment to moment. I might as well have been lost at sea.



After about an hour of walking, I could tell I would need to find water soon. The sun was rising, and the day was getting ever hotter. The desert has a way of taking all the fight and personality out of you. I tried not to think about my situation.

Suddenly, as I came over the top of a dune, I saw a form slumped in the sand ahead of me. I could just barely make it out through the haze, but I hurried towards it. My first thought was that it might be a half-buried camel, in which case it could prove useful provided it hadn't been there too long.

It turned out to be a man, sprawled with his face to the ground. He wore a simple black garment; dressed for the city, not the desert, much like I was. I drew closer. There was something familiar about the body, the light-colored hair…

When I turned him over, I staggered back in shock, letting out a string of curses. How could it be? This was none other than Marik, the Tomb-Keeper. I'd known him back in the Pharoah's city. Yet here he was, as incongruous as I. I was willing to bet he had no idea how he'd come to be here either.

I just stared down at him for a long while, trying to come to some sort of conclusion about the situation. None presented itself; however, and Marik was still unconscious. He was breathing, and didn't seem to be in any kind of immediate danger. The violet eyes were closed, peacefully it seemed, and from what I could see nothing was broken. His face was exhausted though, and his hair was plastered to his forehead as if he'd been sweating from working hard.

I passed a hand in front of his eyes. He seemed to be out like a light. Just to make sure, I started rifling around in his pockets. I can almost always tell when people are playing dead, but it never hurts to be sure.

I found a knife at his waist. A nice one too - ebony, with an inlaid handle and some strange carvings. He'd probably lifted it from some traveler. He'd miss it, for sure, if he woke. He had some coins on his person, which I promptly appropriated. I'd really been hoping he had some kind of water or food, but I was out of luck on this one. I touched his arm briefly. His skin was damp and cool. He had to have been sick. Anyone who's not baking hot after an hour under this sun has something wrong with them.

I stood up. The winds howled around my head, and I covered my nose and mouth to avoid breathing in any sand. I briefly considered waiting for him to come round. I wondered if I should somehow take him with me. It would be the noble thing to do, of course. But the thought was gone almost as soon as it occurred. Never mind that I didn't really know where I was going, he would only slow me down. I had no time to wait.

I turned and walked away. In the distance, the dunes were already changing shape. I knew that if Marik didn't wake up soon, he stood a better than even chance of being completely buried in sand within the hour. I tried not to think about this.

Marik – not quite my enemy, never my friend. I was sure I wouldn't see him again.



A/N: What did you think? As I'm sure any seasoned fanfic reader already knows, that last sentence means we'll probably be seeing a certain person again at some point. And yes, the title is taken from the Anggun song (Snow On the Sahara).

Just curious – I'm trying to get Touzoku-ou's voice to be distinct. He doesn't really have any character development (cuz in the 5th season it's Yami's spirit in his body) so I guess I took some liberties. What do you think?


	2. Khamaseen

The last thing I remember, I was captured by some of the Pharoah's men in the Northern Kingdom. I was being led in chains back to the palace, where, I knew, death awaited me. Not that I was planning to die, of course; I was sure I'd be able to escape at the last minute. The Pharoah's guards are lazy and dimwitted – I suppose everyone's too scared of him to try to break into the holy palace, and the guards are out of practice. It's a pity really; the kingdom of Egypt should have more to show for itself. Not that I mind, of course.

I remember it was night. I'd been in hiding not far from the region where Kul Elna used to be – I'd killed a relative of one of the priests, and the penalty for that was the worst kind of torture the Pharoah's mind could concoct, and then execution. The guards forced me to walk across a good fifty miles of desert within the day. I'm not ashamed to admit that towards the end I was fainting a lot – I lasted a good deal longer than most men would. Not that they let that stop them, they just dragged me behind their horses unconscious.

It was in a rare moment of clarity that a great beam of light came down from the sky, with a sound like time being ripped in two. My head felt like it was splitting, and in the microsecond between that and flying through the void, I felt the presence of a great, unspeakable evil within me – a spirit ancient, and full of hatred, yet strangely familiar to me. I shudder now to even think of it. Whatever it was, it's gone.

I am no stranger to hatred. Sometimes, I even feel it take over me, like a night demon – but I doubt if there was ever anyone with more reason to hate. The Gods punish mortal scum, so what's so bad about retaliation? Some people subscribe to this "two wrongs don't make a right" nonsense, but I beg to differ.

There is a balance in the universe. And when a great evil is committed on one side, another great evil is necessary to restore the harmony. I'm sure the same goes for good, but that's something I haven't seen a great deal of in this lifetime.

In the distance, shimmering in the heat, I could make out what looked like water, and maybe some green…But how could I be sure it wasn't a mirage? I made my way toward it, tentatively, trying not to get my hopes up in case it was an illusion. It faded in and out in the acrid desert air.

I drew closer, and closer, and it didn't disappear. At long last, I was able to hear the trickling of water, gathering in a pool from a deep underground spring. Secretly, I thanked Ra – for I knew that another few days without water, and I'd have been just another dry skeleton stranded amidst desert sands.

It was a small patch of greenery – palms and aloe – surrounding a pool of clear water. I threw myself down at the edge and drank as much as I possibly could. I was so thirsty by that time, it might have been five minutes or two hours I was there, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

I lay there for a while, staring up at the sky. I felt finally that I might really have a chance at getting out of this place – I sensed a divine presence watching over me. Looking back, I wondered if maybe I should have thanked Isis instead of Ra for my second chance.

Isis – always my favorite goddess. As the story goes, one day Ra was asleep. He was an old man by that point, having lived since the beginning of time, and drooled while He slept. Isis silently stepped up, and formed the spit into a snake, which she let loose into the shadows. When the Sun God awoke, the snake came up and bit Him in the heel. Its poison was lethal, and Ra became deathly ill – barely able to stand or speak.

"Tell me thy name," Isis said, "for whoever shall be delivered by Thy name will live."

At that time, Ra's true name was a secret, known only to the God of Gods himself.

"I have made the heavens and the earth," said Ra. "I have made the waters and the great, wide sea. I have stretched out the two horizons like a curtain, and I have placed the soul of the Gods within them. I am He who, if he closes his eyes, darkness comes into being, and if He opens them, brings the light. At His command, the Nile riseth, and the Gods do not know His name. I am Khepera in the morning, I am Ra at noon, and I am Tmu at nightfall."

And the poison drew closer to His heart. The Sun God fell, no longer able to walk.

Isis said, "You have not told me thy name. Tell me thy true name, and the poison shall leave you."

The poison burned hotter than furnaces, hotter than the fires of Hell. And Ra, staring Death in the face, told her His Name.

Isis – greatest of all the Gods. She was a thief, like me. And yet, with infinite patience and infinite cleverness, she became the most powerful of them all, for she alone knows the secret name of Ra.

This story I'd known since infancy passed through my mind as I stared up at the blue heavens that Ra had made. I was so grateful for the water, and for my life, that I felt a false sense of security, and might have fallen asleep, had not something strange happened.

Slowly, the blue sky became brown. The voice of the wind rose to a fever pitch. I rose to my feet, wishing with all my might that I was not seeing what I was seeing.

Once a year, a great hot wind sweeps across the land of Egypt. In the cities, they bar their windows and venture outside only if absolutely necessary. In the desert, this wind is almost certain death. We call it Khamaseen.

I could see the sand being whipped into the air in the distance – the line of the horizon was becoming blurred. Scanning the landscape, I figured I had approximately an hour until the wind reached me.

For fifty days each year, the land of Egypt is layered with a thick dust, making it impossible to breathe or see more than five feet in front of you. In the desert, the wind means a vicious sandstorm which will blind you, render you speechless and helpless. The nomads who live in the desert year-round know how to survive the Khamaseen, but few else do.

I narrowed my eyes. At least I was near water. Perhaps I could stay until the wind finally died down…

But at the worst possible moment, a pang of guilt went through me. Marik was out there, all alone…and probably he'd woken up by now. Unlike me, Marik hadn't lived in the desert, that much I knew, and there was no chance he would know how to survive. I thought of myself, safe near the oasis, with plenty of water on hand, while he gasped and choked out in the endless waste, dying a horrible death.

I needed to wreak revenge on the Pharoah and his people for what they had done to me, my family, my village. Undoubtedly, I stood a better chance to survive and carry out my plan if I just stayed put. But would my victory really be so sweet, knowing I could have prevented the needless death of someone I knew, and didn't?

Who was Marik? Just another outlaw with less than noble motives. I certainly didn't particularly care for the man.

And yet…the Pharoah of Egypt had heedlessly ordered the deaths of a hundred people, with no thought of their suffering or pain. Perhaps the best revenge against him was simple doing the opposite of what he had done. Staring wide-eyed at the imminent storm, I realized this was my chance to redeem myself.

I could already feel the frenzied breezes making way for the coming blast. Working quickly, I ripped off the bottom section of my robe and wrapped it around my head, leaving only a space to see out of. It would at least ensure I wouldn't suffocate. I tied the rest of the red robe to the palm tree that grew beside the pool – hopefully I would be able to see it at a distance, and be able to get back. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to find my way back, but I tried not to think about that possibility.

I set off back the way I had come. Almost as if it knew what I had in mind, the wind tore at me as I walked, like it was trying to get me to turn back. The sky was darkening fast. I knew I was doing something stupid, and it took all the self-control I had not to bolt back to where I knew I could save myself.

I just hoped he was still there.



A/N: I'll put up more when I get some reviews!


End file.
